Saturday, May 16, 2009

A Bangladeshi teenager who died in a garment factory that supplies cheap jeans for export to Europe was "overworked to death", a rights group said.

Fatema Akter, 18, a garment worker in the port city of Chittagong, died during her shift in December last year, the US-based National Labor Committee said.

"Forced to work 13 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, Fatema was sick and exhausted, with pains in her chest and arms," the report said.

Her job was to clean 90 to 100 pairs of finished jeans an hour, it said.

"Rather than grant her a sick day [her supervisor] slapped her face very hard and ordered her to continue working."

I wrote a paper for my "Regulating the Global Economy" class last semester that detailed the "race to the bottom" (RTTB) The general idea of the RTTB is that as capital regulations are freed up, investors are allowed to direct their investment just about anywhere -- so they choose to invest in cheaper labor, worse working conditions, and in areas with poor environmental standards. They do this to save money. Thus, countries have an incentive to weaken their labor and environmental laws so that investors will choose to bring investment.

Without a real global regulatory structure for labor rights -- the closest thing we have is the WTO, which most would argue does the opposite of empowering labor -- we are stuck with situations like this. We have people like Fatema literally being worked to the point of death.

So far, President Obama has not addressed the problem of the RTTB and the inequalities in the global labor market, although both the Senate and House have introduced bills that would empower legal action to be taken against sweatshop industries and would work to boost working conditions and standards.

Certainly something that will help in the effort is the exit of the Republicans from power in Washington. They fought tooth and nail to maintain sweatshop conditions on the Marianas Islands, for example, even hiring Jack Abramoff to be their lobbying hit man against minimum wage legislation.

From my point of view, working to eliminate sweatshops and brutal labor conditions is as important a fight as ending slavery. Groups like Oxfam are the new abolitionists, and I wish them the best of luck.

2
comments:

This sounds like something typical of what the state does to its subjects, e.g. to military conscripts.

If coercion is involved, there's a problem. However, recognize that not all sweatshops use violent tactics such as these.

If a company and its employees are cooperating by mutual agreement, I see no reason to get involved, no matter how harsh the working conditions. To do so is to initiate aggression, which is an immoral act.

"If a company and its employees are cooperating by mutual agreement, I see no reason to get involved, no matter how harsh the working conditions. To do so is to initiate aggression, which is an immoral act."

Dude, man, wait until you can't get any other job except for a sweatshop and then you'll see what's immoral.

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